Roll the Bones: Role Call: DIY:
Can you summarize two campaign concepts you’d create for player with identical tastes to your own?
I’d run an alien-conspiracy-hunting/mil-ops game modeled on the outstanding old Microprose game X-Com
It is the year 1999. Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have started appearing with disturbing regularity in the night skies. Reports of violent human abductions and horrific experimentation has struck terror into the hearts of millions. Mass public hysteria has only served to expose Earth?s impotence against a vastly superior technology.
Many countries have attempted to deal independently with the aliens. The lesson was clear: this was a worldwide problem which could not be dealt with by individual countries.
On December 11, 1998, representatives from the world?s most economically powerful countries gathered secretly in Geneva. After much debate, the decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat, investigate and defeat the alien threat. This organization would be equipped with the world?s finest pilots, soldiers, scientists and engineers, working together as one multi-national force.
This organization was named the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit.
Man I loved that game. Why would I need someone of my sort of disposition to play the thing? Because in a game like that, agents/marines die — that’s just how it works, or there’s no real threat — the aliens aren’t really that scary. That means putting time into developing one, two, maybe three PCs for each player in each group, and expecting some to die. You’ve got to have a quick, dirty, tactical combat system that allows for easy, quick character creation (because you’ll be doing that alot).
Bottom line: it probably works better as a video game than an RPG, due to the tactics of it, but I love it.
I don’t know if I have a second entry for this topic — I’ll have to think on it.